In this series, Lonely Planet's team of writers and editors answers your travel problems and provides tips and hacks to help you plan a hassle-free trip. This week, John Walton, Lonely Planet’s resident aviation journalist and airline nerd, answers a question about scoring a good seat on a plane.
Question: When I am booking flights online I wonder if there is a preferred seat to choose in economy. I always seem to get assigned a seat where I can't relax. Are any seats better than others that I should know about? Or are there seats that I should avoid?
Answer: I feel your pain… often literally. You won’t be surprised to know that I fly a lot, and even I find that choosing a seat can be really complicated. In general, beyond the “window or aisle” question, here are a few secret gems (and hidden pitfalls!) to look out for.
First things first: if you want a good seat these days, you’ll probably need to pay for it. If you don’t, you risk being auto-allocated a middle seat, or something right next to the onboard lavatories. Decide whether forking out the dough is worth it, or keep your cash and be content with spending it on something else.
When it comes to choosing your seat, avoid anything near a lavatory. Babies usually end up in the front row “bulkhead” seats, so if you’re sensitive to noise pick something in the middle of the cabin.
Apart from that, a lot of the seat map websites are out of date and conflicting, airline seat selection pages don’t have all the detail, and many airlines have different layouts on the same plane — meaning that 11A might be a great seat on one of them but a terrible seat on another. Peer closely, and compare multiple sources if it’s really important to you.
When booking your flight, most of the time you’ll have wider seats if you book an Airbus plane rather than a Boeing one. (This isn’t 100%, but it works at least four times out of five in my experience.)
Aim for the centre aisle seats on long haul wide-body flights: if you love an aisle, it’s almost always better to pick one in the middle section, because those middle seats next to you will be the last to fill up — and there’ll be fewer passengers climbing over you than if you were sitting on the side by a window.
Be choosy about front row “bulkhead” and exit row seats: at the front of the cabin or by the emergency exits, these seats can be great for more legroom but may have drawbacks like no recline or tighter seat width in order to fit in a side-opening tray table. Some bulkhead seats may even feel like they have less legroom than a regular seat since you can’t slide your feet underneath.
Some rows don’t have them to allow for cabling or air ducts, most famously Ryanair’s seat 11A on its huge fleet of Boeing 737-800s.
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Mexico is known for its beautiful beaches, bustling cities, colorful towns, and delicious food. When a country has so much to offer, deciding the best time to visit Mexico can be difficult. The truth is that figuring out when to visit Mexico depends on what type of holiday you’re looking to enjoy.
If you're wondering when's the best time of year to visit Machu Picchu, what to pack and how to get there, the answer depends on whether you plan to hike up or take the train, and whether you'd prefer to visit in the busiest season when the weather's better but the site is more crowded.
British skies dazzle when the sun sinks, and there are a handful of dark sky reserves and discovery sites where the lack of light pollution can help stargazing enthusiasts feel that bit closer to the universe. Take a winter stomp across freezing moors or a late-night summer drive up to a remote hilltop to find a sky full of stars with distant planets glittering overhead on clear nights. Often, there’s no need for a telescope either — star clusters such as Pleiades and Hyades, the Milky Way, nebulae and shooting stars can often be seen with the naked eye or with the help of a pair of cheap binoculars and stargazing apps such as Stellarium Mobile.
People may think of Thailand as a food-focused destination, or a place for great nightlife or even a wellness center and somewhere to go and be pampered.
A volcano erupted in southwest Iceland on Monday. Despite the eruption, only the Blue Lagoon spa, Grindavik and areas close the volcano are off limits to the public.
Working at a travel publication can be dizzying—in a year, we go so many places, write so many stories, and publish a lot of content. At times, it can feel like we've run out of world to cover: If you've been there, we've probably done that. But that's of course not the case, and certain stories are an especially powerful reminder of the many stones that remain unturned; that there are many ways to take a trip, either to a familiar place or somewhere markedly overlooked, and tell a completely new story about it.
Traditionally nomadic, Sámi people have been herding reindeer across Sápmi (Lapland) for 7,000 years, long before the region was divided into Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Reindeer are integral to the Sámi way of life, yet the Indigenous people’s lifestyle is under threat from climate change, mines and cultural appropriation. Sweden is home to 20,000 Sámi, a fifth of whom roam with their herd around Laponia — a UNESCO World Heritage Site that stretches across Sweden’s Artic North. The others keep their customs alive by continuing age-old traditions and sharing stories about their heritage. Here are some exciting ways to explore their culture.
Consider Gold List the answer to the question our editors get asked more than any other: What are your favorite places to stay? Our 30th annual iteration of the world’s greatest hotels and cruises captures nearly a year’s worth of work: This collection of 75 resorts and hotels represents hundreds of hours of researching, scouting, and impassioned debating by our team of editors in seven cities across the globe. But more than that, it reflects our ongoing love affair with the places where we stay, which often become our gateways to entire destinations. Read on to inspire your next trip.
With its turquoise lagoon, blonde beaches and lush mountain backdrop, Bora Bora is the epitome of a tropical paradise. Typically pictured with clear blue, sunny skies or fiery sunsets, this is the luxury island escape that many travelers dream of – and thanks to year-round warm temperatures, there's no such thing as a bad time to visit.